ᴛʜᴇ ʀɪɢʜᴛᴇᴏᴜs ᴍᴀɴ ( ᴊᴇɴɴɪғᴇʀ ᴀɴᴋʟᴇs ) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
righteously) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
abraxaslogs2022-01-17 01:38 pm
righteously) wrote in abraxaslogs2022-01-17 01:38 pm
Sʜᴇ ᴡᴀs ᴀ ʟᴏɴɢ ᴄᴏᴏʟ ᴡᴏᴍᴀɴ ɪɴ ᴀ ʙʟᴀᴄᴋ ᴅʀᴇss
WHO: Dean Winchester and friends
WHAT: Catch-all open post
WHERE: Cadens/Free Cities + the wilderness + the Horizon
WHEN: January
WARNINGS: Typical Winchester-related issues such as alcoholism, self-loathing, hell, torture, etc.
𝑆𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝐼 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑛
𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝐵𝐼
𝑆𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑛' 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑏𝑎𝑑 𝑚𝑒𝑛
𝑊ℎ𝑖𝑠𝑘𝑒𝑦 𝑏𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑖𝑔ℎ
WHAT: Catch-all open post
WHERE: Cadens/Free Cities + the wilderness + the Horizon
WHEN: January
WARNINGS: Typical Winchester-related issues such as alcoholism, self-loathing, hell, torture, etc.
𝑆𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝐼 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑛
𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝐵𝐼
𝑆𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑛' 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑏𝑎𝑑 𝑚𝑒𝑛
𝑊ℎ𝑖𝑠𝑘𝑒𝑦 𝑏𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑖𝑔ℎ
ᴏᴘᴇɴ ᴛᴏ sᴛᴀʀᴛᴇʀs
horizon!purgatory
The Horizon is constantly shifting and changing in its own little ways, depending on its inhabitants, who's new and who's gone. Still, a bar — not a tavern, a bar, from someone who actually knows what a gun is — should have been easy enough to spot. A salvage yard, more so. That would've been interesting to stumble across.
Instead, Amos has got a washed-out, greyed forest. Which. At least it's different from the forests out in the real world, both here and back home. That's the silver lining, that he knows he's somewhere else entirely. That, and the fact that he knows this place isn't real, that he could leave any time he wants to.
He doesn't. There's supposed to be a bar around here, and Amos is hardly the kind of person to cut and run. He's here now. He might as well deal with it.
Though he gets the distinct sense that he isn't alone here, and as much as nothing in the Horizon is real, there's no sense in being unarmed. He hadn't thought to bring his shotgun with him; good thing he can just manifest it here, so he does. (Maybe he'll just bring it with him every time he goes exploring other domains, if it's gonna be like this.) Place is fucking weird. ]
Alright. [ His tone is something between casual and exasperated. Like when one goes out for a stroll and finds oneself... well, somewhere like this. He hefts his shotgun up, holding it in both hands, but doesn't have a finger on the trigger. Doesn't have any intention of shooting anything. At least not yet. ] Don't know why anyone dreamed this up, but whoever you are, you got an interesting sense of style.
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From the trees comes the sound of crunching footsteps. Just one pair, at first. Blinking from the darkness, a set of bright eyes from an inky-black shape. Shortly thereafter comes another to Amos's left, then one to his right, the three of them encroaching bit by bit until they're maybe five or six yards away. The inky blackness forms itself into something person-ish, which might seem comforting for all of two seconds, before that person-face splits open at the jaw and becomes nothing but an enlarged, tooth-ringed mouth. Like a lamprey got busy with a blender.
Leviathans. A shotgun might slow them down a little, but their flesh will knit right back up around the wound. The leader makes to launch itself forward, just to stop in mid-air as though frozen still.
And then its head slides grossly off its shoulders, to plop down onto the ground. Behind him is ya boy Winchester, in all his flannel-clad glory, not quite a mess like he'd been in reality, but clutching the same weapon. They don't exactly have an abundance of time on their hands for them to talk, for Dean to find out if he can handle something like this or not, so he takes a gamble. Dude was holding a weapon, maybe he knows how to fight. A second blade like Dean's manifests in his free hand, and he tosses it upright and gentle in Amos's direction. )
Take off the head.
( He barks out by way of greeting, and promptly rounds on the left one. )
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Shadowy figures emerging from darkness might be just enough to set his teeth on edge, let alone being surrounded by them. That's when his finger moves on the trigger, even before the faces split open. It's almost better that they do, because it confirms they aren't human. Aren't anything he's ever seen.
Though, it occurs to him, they probably use all those teeth for something, and he doesn't want to be on the end of that.
The shotgun is up, aimed squarely at the leader at the first sign of movement, before Amos finds he suddenly has no need to shoot in that direction at all anymore. That it'd be better if he didn't, considering how there's an actual human in said line of fire now.
Amos drops the shotgun at the arrival of a new weapon, letting it disintegrate into nothing if he doesn't need it here after all. Catches the weapon, and has just enough time to give it a quick once-over. It's not really like the swords he's been learning to use, but it's got a handle and it's got a blade, close enough.
He gives a sharp nod at Dean's order, then rounds on the Leviathan to the right, blade singing through the air as he does. Giving him some sense of its weight before, with a yell, he goes for the base of its neck. It's not a clean cut, but a step closer and another swing, and it briefly occurs to Amos that he's never actually had to decapitate anything before.
He takes an extra second to make sure the thing isn't getting back up before looking over his shoulder, seeing if Dean needs any help, or if things are handled now. ]
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It drops, and for the moment, all seems quiet.
That never lasts that long in Purgatory.
He has to remind himself that's not where they are, and so he catches Amos's attention and nods sharply in the direction they need to take to get the hell out. )
Come on. Stay sharp.
( As they go, one or two are likely to pop up — Leviathan, or hissing vampires, or wrinkle-snouted humanoid werewolves, all of them easily dispatched with the same method of decapitation. Eventually, the grayscale begins to fade back into normal browns and greens, and Dean tosses his weapon absently to the side. It disappears into the underbrush.
He casts an assessing look Amos's direction, climbing his way down from the adrenaline high. )
You okay?
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He meets his eyes and follows wordlessly at Dean's instruction. Don't gotta tell him twice.
Amos keeps his weapon at the ready, should he need it again, as they walk. Looks around as colour starts to seep back into their surroundings; follows Dean's weapon with his eyes as he throws it away, then does the same. When in Rome, right? It's worked out this well so far.
At the question, Amos inhales deeply as he feels his own adrenaline comedown. After exhale, he cracks a grin, all teeth. The smile of someone who knows he had the chance to get fucked up, but didn't, so turns out he enjoyed it, after all. ]
Me? Fuck yeah. First time I've gotten to fight anything in a long time. [ He takes another breath, smile falling from his face as he does so, expression settling into something more pleasantly neutral. The experience had gotten his blood singing; that's clearly over now. He cocks his head at Dean. ] Are you okay? Never seen anything like those things before.
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Also, can't help but be privately relieved this guy gets it. Would've been a real awkward conversation to have with most civilians. Sometimes you just gotta hunt something doesn't generally go over well with people who have what you might call quote-unquote good mental health or whatever.
They amble through trees at a slower clip; a couple hundred yards away, the first hint of light from the illuminate bar sign starts to crop up. )
Leviathans.
( As though that explains everything. )
Nasty sons of bitches. Hard to kill. Chopping the head off usually slows 'em down for a while.
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His mental health is as good as it's ever gonna get; no real point in trying for a whole lot more.
There's a slight narrowing of his eyes at Leviathans, a non-verbal question. But then Amos raises his eyebrows as Dean continues. ]
Slows them down? So they ain't even dead? [ He exhales, short and sharp. ] That's gotta suck out in the real world, wherever you're from. How do you kill them?
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Borax.
( He answers, some faint amusement in his tone. Yep, you heard him. Borax. The stuff they put in laundry detergent — and damn near every other cleaning product, too. )
Well, that, and I guess you could stick the head in a metal box and chuck it in the ocean. Probably take a while for it to figure out how to deal with that, but if you're not really the beach life type...
( Borax.
Anyway, having only talked to him through text he's not entirely certain, so he's gotta double-check. )
Amos, right?
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What, does it melt them or something? [ He huffs, shakes his head. ] Back home, when we were faced with an unkillable monster, we had to lure it out of the ship and burn it up in the drive plume. Break it down on an atomic level. Probably more trouble to do that than toss a head in an ocean. [ He pauses in thought for a second. ] Unless you're nowhere near an ocean, I guess.
[ Because this doesn't look like the kind of space that's going to have an ocean in it at any point. Amos looks up, catches sight of the bar sign, and his eyes light up in recognition. ]
Thought it'd be somewhere around here. [ He says it more to himself than to Dean, though he nods at his name. ] Yup. That's me. And you're the guy with a bar that apparently you gotta fight monsters first to get to.
[ There's no disapproval in his tone. If anything, he might be kinda into it. ]
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hunters gonna hunt.
Determining what's flipped these wagons over isn't difficult. The tracks make it obvious: talons imprinted into the sand, a few shed scales shimmering red under the afternoon sun. Those birds really are fucking everywhere, aren't they?
The nest takes him until sunset to locate. He spends a couple of hours eyeing where the birds are coming and going, how many (four), the size of them (one female larger than average). Should be simple.
So of course it isn't.
Dean will not find Geralt dispatching a handful of flightless lizard-like birds hungry for flesh. Instead, he will find him pinned under a thick talon, the heavy beating of leathery wings above. He doesn't even know what the fuck it is. A wyvern of a sort, but far bigger than any he's seen. Wickedly curved beak instead of teeth, forked tongue. It snaps at him—beak clamped around the blade of his sword as he holds it back. ]
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Gotta keep this economy going somehow, though.
He announces himself not with a bang, but a whisper. Literally; he found himself a gun, but the gross ammo extortion around here's a freakin' nightmare. He's trying to save bullets where he can, which means the rifle stays strapped to his back in favor of a dagger that goes whizzing through the air over Geralt's head. It thunks into its target, but apparently taking a whole freakin' dagger to the noggin doesn't kill medieval pterodactyls. )
Damn it-
( Comes the annoyed mutter as the son of a bitch turns its attention on Dean — a momentary reprieve for Geralt, at least. It launches itself forward, its movements erratic and drunk thanks to the partial lobotomy happening upstairs.
Probably something worth spending a bullet or three on.
He lines up a shot, grunting out: )
You are not the chicken I'm looking for.
( Before pulling the trigger. Damn thing kicks like a horse, but it seems to accomplish more than the dagger did. The sound it makes is distinctly more ow than I'm gonna eat your face off.
But, uh. Freakin' thing's still coming. )
Oh, crap.
( Time to dive, no claws to the face, not today, Satan. )
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(That. Is a voice he knows.)
The crack in the air splinters his eardrums, sharp as a needle. It's not the first time he's heard one of those go off anymore, but fuck if he doesn't still hate it. It does the trick, though: the creature turns, charges at the new threat. He flips his sword in his hand and follows close behind—and when it dives, so does he. The blade sinks into the soft spot at its joint behind a wing and tears downward.
His feet hit the ground just as the reptile takes off—lopsided, spilling blood, but definitely not dead. And definitely fleeing back to its den to recover. Which. Shit.
He sighs. Reaches down to offer Dean a hand up, if he's still on the ground. The chickens Dean was looking for are, in fact, mostly taken care of: three are in the blood-soaked sand, split open. Fourth is missing, fled in the chaos. But there's a bigger problem than that now, lurking in the skies.
And what the fuck is Dean doing here? If that blacksmith hired both of them without telling him, she'll need to explain herself. ] Out for a walk?
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Figured it was a nice night for a sponsored moonlight stroll.
( Thanks again for the hot tip about making actual freaking money.
He takes a second to absently brush himself off, check that his gun's still a gun, look for his-
Oh, damn it. )
Son of a bitch stole my knife!
( That last half is directed angrily up at the empty sky, like he's accusing... Absolutely nothing, because the thing's totally gone by now.
Look, daggers don't just grow on trees, okay?
... Do they grow on trees around here?
Anyway- )
What the Kentucky Fried Hell was that?
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He wonders if the damage slung at each other in that crater disturbed some of what used to nest about the area. Sent it elsewhere.
Dean's remarks go unanswered. He studies the splash of blood instead—a trail that fades as the creature took flight. Less bleeding than he'd hoped. ]
Come on. [ Seems they've crossed threads; might as well see it through together. Normally, he would not—he gets things done quicker alone—but Dean did give him a hand and he isn't about to tell the man to sit out a job he came here to do. They can sort out who was sponsored by whom afterwards. Besides, Dean will keep up or he won't.
He starts towards his horse, tethered a short distance off. Has Dean got a mount? Did he walk out here? (Can he even ride? Geralt's met far too many people for whom horses are a distant notion.) Either way, Roach herself is—perhaps not as expected for a man like Geralt: her thick black mane is carefully braided, her tail done similar. Rinwell's handiwork. ]
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As it turns out, he does have a horse. It's not his horse, and they're not really on a fun basis in terms of friendliness yet. It's lashed a dozen or so yards off because he doesn't trust the thing not to get freaked out by a gunshot or a screech and take off in the woods, leaving him to walk his happy ass however many miles he's gotta back to town.
It gives a frustrated whinny when he climbs on, shaking its head and initially turning back the other way before he corrects and practically manhandles it forward.
He spent way too much time in Texas to not know how to ride.
He does, however, slightly hate horses. He misses his car. Baby never gave him any push-back.
Doesn't take any direction for him to spot a few disrupted branches where it broke the treeline, nor the occasional splatter of blood it leaves behind on its journey. They set off at a clip as quick as they can spot the trail. )
It ain't gonna get far on that wing.
( Probably not necessary to point out, but such is the nature of Dean's mouth. )
You were like freakin' Xena: Warrior Princess just now. I gotta up my game.
( He spent a lot of time getting nasty with packs of gorilla-apes in Purgatory, but he's a little rusty on his giant dragon bats, and his sword flips. )
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Roach, by contrast, waits patiently for Geralt to slip his sword into the side of her saddle and hop on. He pats her before they move off—and there's a brief glance over his shoulder as Dean's horse nearly goes the other direction. (Not the strongest start.) Dean catches up, though, so Geralt makes no comment. The pace is brisk, but not hurried. Something tells him it might be easier to wait until nightfall. If it's out during the day, then it's unlikely to be nocturnal.
Even without the blood marked on the branches, the sand, he can smell it in the air. The desert is nowhere near as dense as forests he normally moves through. Makes it easier for the wind to carry scents his way. ]
That creature is new. [ First time he's been called a princess, he thinks. A novelty. He breaks an end off a branch and sniffs it. It smells, hm. Bitter. The blood, that is. Like there's a toxin within it. ] I've traversed this area for months. Never seen signs of it.
[ Except he's been out of commission for nearly two months: trapped in Thorne and Nott at first, then trapped recovering in Cadens. Perhaps it moved in during that time. Still unusual, though. ]
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Wellp. Congratulations, you discovered it, you get to name it.
( That's just how it works — and Geralt will find himself levelled with an expectant stare until he offers something up.
No, he isn't joking. Yes, he will be judging. )
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Geralt stares back. A long stretch of silence follows, filled only with the steady clop of hooves on dry, hardened dirt. A hawk screeches in the distance.
They pass at least most of a small, wilted stream before he looks ahead again. This is why humans were not designed to hunt monsters. ]
It doesn't need a name for me to kill it.
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now featuring: a modicum of reading comprehension
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horizon - part purgatory, part salvage yard/bobby's
because purgatory, he realizes quickly, when red-eyed shadows growl just past a line of trees, when a leviathan comes screeching, bolting at him from behind a bush.
when cas emerges into bobby's junkyard, it's with the corpse of a gorilla-wolf dragged behind him, red eyes dark, face bearing the marks of a solid smiting-scorch. he drops it unceremoniously a few yards from bobby's front porch, where dean's hanging out with a beer. ]
You brought Purgatory with you.
[ more observation than accusation, not disapproving but curious, some part worried. the unspoken why doesn't need airing, it's clear enough in the squinted stare dean's getting. cas realizes the domains are mostly built from unconscious whims and emotional undercurrents, so the wonder is less about intention, more concern for what of purgatory is wound up in the gears inside dean's head. ]
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( He returns dryly, because clearly the actual topic of interest here should be Cas's manners.
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Concerned.
[ unsurprised and entirely ignoring dean's clear dodge. if there's any place or state that's a good opportunity to have the discussion, it's here, in the horizon, where these things float to the surface in a relatively safe environment. ]
The way we left, it wasn't... [ clean, honest, meant to resolve quite the way it did. even the state of their friendship at the time - cas had abandoned him, regardless of the intention to protect, dean was clearly upset, and cas, per usual, was lost on how to amend that. he's frowning, searching for a way to phrase this without outing his less than genuine intentions to make it home (another abandonment, perhaps, so soon after hashing out the last). He gives up on that route, goes for another. ]
With Geralt, when you tried to meditate — what happened?
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He pulls a face at concerned — something flat and just a thread away from rolling his eyes. Don't be, it reads. He's fine. Look at him, sitting on a porch, drinking a beer, perfectly alive and everything.
That superficial flash of sardonicism gets edged out a little at the question, a slightly more real discontent creeping in until he can lock it back down again. )
Nothing. ( Nice and curt. ) I couldn't do it, so he sent me to Sam. End of story.
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it eats at him too, being able to see it so plainly when dean's wrestling something down, smothering it into a box that's already overflowing with trauma he can't bring himself to approach. like a closet door you can't open, lest all the stacked up boxes and junk come pouring out in an avalanche, to bury you.
end of story, he says, and cas holds him in a knowing stare. you're full of shit, dean winchester, but that's fine. if that's the survival tactic needed right now, so be it. after the uncomfortably long and still silence, cas sighs, turns his back to dean to look out towards the haunted woods he'd just passed through. ]
I still think about it. Purgatory. [ cas starts, hands pushed into his coat pockets (horizon gives him the trench coat, at least). ] Even here, it's hard to stop checking over my shoulder, watching shadows like they'll move. Bolt towards me. Teeth, claws, screams and blood.
[ the sentiment isn't untrue. even if he'd been better equipped for a never-ending battle, constantly on the run, it did wear on him. his guilt and commitment to penance didn't help either, but this admission isn't for castiel's benefit. ] Some days I was so exhausted, I thought maybe I should just lay down, let them have me.
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He heaves out a sigh, slow and resigned, and a moment later pushes himself up to his feet. He ambles over toward the porch railing. Settles his forearms against it, and lets himself slump.
Alright.
They're doing this. )
I didn't. ( He says bluntly, leveling Cas with a steady look. ) Not even once.
( He'll give Cas a second to marinate on that — it's no small thing considering how much time Dean's spent toeing the line of wanting to lay down like that himself. )
Because from the second you took off, the only thing that mattered was tracking you down.
( He lets his gaze linger for a second or two, before peeling it away and looking off toward those distant, colorless trees. )
And you know what? It was the simplest anything's felt in years. No politics. No mind games. No worrying about who's yanking who's chain, who's lying, or— addicted to something, or moving me around like a chess piece. There was one goal, one that actually mattered, and for the first time in a long time the only thing I had to do to get there was what I was always supposed to be doing.
( Killing monsters. )
It felt like everything... made sense.
( The world was in a language he could understand. It's easy to get lost in that. )